Truth and Bullshit, a Balanced Diet

Once upon a time, I was in grad school. And what a time it was! A time when I found myself in conversations about things like genre and the ways in which one genre can get away with something another can’t. Though I never quite agreed. Chalk it up to my contrarian nature, but I was all for collapsing the distinctions between fiction and nonfiction, even fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, sure, why not?

During one class, a peer offered the following: “I prefer nonfiction. I like truth.”

This otherwise intelligent human actually said this!

As a means of bursting her bubble, I brought up some outside-of-class reading, specifically Charles Mingus’s memoir Beneath the Underdog. The book is fun, but obviously bullshit. Are we to believe that Mingus slept with that many sex workers in one night? Read it for yourself and judge.

Mingus’s book was not the first piece of so-called nonfiction to raise a red flag, but it remains my clearest example of a memoir that stretches the truth. Of course, I knew this was the function of memoir already, having read another jazz great’s nonfiction book, Miles by Miles Davis and Quincy Troupe. I also went to a reading by Troupe and heard him tell a story about working with Miles. Troupe had the audacity to fact check the stories Miles was telling him, the ones that were going in the book. When Troupe suggested that Miles’s stories were not lining up with the facts, Miles replied: “Quincy—whose fucking book is this? Write what I say!”

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The big blow to truth in memoir came when Oprah crucified James Frey. To save face once Frey’s A Million Little Pieces was found to be almost entirely bullshit, Oprah— who’d chosen the memoir for her book club— brought the author back to her show (why did he go?) because her loyal fans required a sacrifice after this terrible man tricked their daytime deity.

Frey, by the way, is an asshole. I have zero sympathy for the guy, though I do still wonder how so many readers could’ve been duped by his book. From the little I’ve read, he makes claims that are obviously false. Something about boarding an airplane covered in bodily fluids, him being all junk sick, as if the airline would’ve let him board in that condition. That, along with other tells, should’ve clued readers in.

I don’t think readers were blind to fabrication. They just believed what they wanted to believe. It’s an inspiring story (I’m told). Guy kicks junk, takes control of his life. We like that story. Why fuck it up with critical thought?

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My classmate’s claim, that she preferred truth to fiction, stays with me. It was with me when I wrote a memoir. I included a Vonnegut rip-off intro that offered some of what I stated above, summarizing the debate as being between truth and bullshit. I advised readers that what they were about to read was mostly true with a dash of exaggeration. I felt the need to do this because my publisher said it was a good idea. Any investigation into my memoir (as if that was ever going to happen) would reveal that some of the events were made up. Well, not really. There were composite characters, altered details, changed names, and recreated conversations that could never be 100% accurate. Too many years and beers— my memory’s not that good.

As I was writing this intro, I thought, “Jesus, who cares if memoirs are true?” Apparently, people do. A lot of them. Nonfiction is still very popular. We privilege experience over imagination. No wonder we’re such a sad society.

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Since I don’t get many reviews, they’re easy to avoid, but I try not to read them anyway. Especially after I read one very bad review of my memoir that cited the fact that so much of it wasn’t true. Of course, this more than hints that the Amazon reviewer (anonymous, of course) knows me, or knew me, and has some beef with yours truly. Likely candidates shall not be listed here; suffice it to state that there are many.

If the basis of the bad review is that I made shit up, well, fuck that reviewer. Again, who gives a damn? I didn’t lie in an irresponsible manner. (What a strange sentence.) And again: anyone reading a memoir should know that they contain traces of bullshit. You’re reading the account of events from one person’s perspective. You know the problem with that. You’ve seen Rashomon, right?

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Angela’s Ashes tends to get the recent credit (blame?) for the popularity of memoirs. It was a very successful book. Publishers, subject to the whims of the market and not all mavericks on a mission to elevate culture, naturally went looking for the next big memoir. And the next. And the next. The results were many, among them the furthering of nonfiction as a preferred genre and the expanding homogenization of contemporary literature. The market is a powerful thing, folks!

It’s not like Americans were devouring novels by the ton anyway, so I suppose anything that gets people reading is good. And there are some great memoirs and essay collections out there. (I can recommend a few.) Still, I can’t help but wonder if one of the effects of this truth over imagination thing is that readers began to insist on believability in everything they read. Hard to imagine an Italo Calvino book having a place in that world.

I don’t assume everyone cares. And even those who might make a passionate defense of truth, or even verisimilitude, in literature may not agree with what I’m about to suggest, but that’s hardly going to stop me.

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Thesis: We need narratives; we love them. But truth is not always interesting. So, when crafting stories from banal reality we tend to zhuzh things up, massage the facts, add some fun details born of imagination, exaggerate a touch. As consumers of narratives, we can’t admit that we’re enjoying bullshit. We need to believe these stories are true. This is a relatively benign practice, though I can also see the dark end of the spectrum. And it’s dark, so much so that I’ll still argue against devaluing fiction in favor of “nonfiction.”

Let’s talk about conspiracy theories.

In the book A Lot of People are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy, Nancy L. Rosenblum and Russell Muirhead make the point that there’s little theory in what we call conspiracy theories, at least the ones of the last few years. Theory requires something more than what the average Trump supporting truther or climate change denier peddles. The closest thing to a theory is what the QAnon folks believe, that a secret cabal of democrats are running child sex rings, that Hollywood elites are regular customers of this sex ring, that Trump knows about it and is on a mission to eradicate it, thus the need for him to remain in power. They believe that all the attempts to check his extra-legal behavior are really just liberal pedophiles and their enablers trying to keep the perverted party going, and that the liberals’ hatred of Trump has nothing to do with Trump’s many loathsome qualities and everything to do with stopping this man on a righteous mission. Because liberals apparently know about all this creepy sex ring stuff and are immoral enough to let it happen.

The irony of Trump being an accused sexual offender, and close pal of pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, is lost on these folks. No amount of evidence that challenges their belief is enough. Pizzagate being exposed as batshit crazy nonsense has not stopped the #pizzagateisreal hashtag from cluttering social media. There is a narrative, and no facts will shatter it. The best you’ll get is, “You have your sources and I have mine” as if all sources are equal.

That so many of the contemporary conspiracy theories (the racist birtherism that plagued Obama, the 9/11 was an inside job story, the Hillary Clinton is a lizard person insanity) are such obvious fiction matters not. Nothing will stop the locomotive of bullshit. Currently there is a segment of this country that believes that the 2020 election was rigged, that Trump won, that Biden is going to be an illegitimate president. Based on the shakiest of “evidence,” the theory gains strength the more we deny it. Of course, not fighting such claims won’t make them go away either. Damned if you do or don’t. There’s no getting rid of these weeds.

I wish I could recommend fiction as the alternative. If I am right, if our need for stories is that important, why wouldn’t a good novel (or a series of them) take the place of conspiracy theories? Well, obvious answer: because we know novels are made up. The fact that they are marketed as novels tells us so. This we cannot abide. But when bullshit tales are sold as truth— that plays!

Conspiracy theories are fun. They have drama, intrigue, political shenanigans, clear cut good and bad guys. There’s often sex. There’s almost always murder and violence and juicy stuff like that. And they make people feel smart. There’s a level of sophistication to some of these stories. Or at least a complex rabbit hole to fall down. They distract, describe what is ether too difficult to explain or astonishingly simple to accept. So yeah, a good John Le Carré book might offer something similar, but why read a book when there’s 8chan?

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What about movies, Vince? What about Netflix shows? People love those and they’re obvious works of fiction. No one believes the Avengers are real.

Well, yeah.

We’re more than willing to suspend disbelief when watching a story told on a screen. Movies and TV shows get a pass. But the critics of these shows and films almost always pounce on the smallest seam showing.

The split opinions generated by The Queen’s Gambit are a great example. Yes, it’s clearly unrealistic. As more than one critic/viewer has pointed out, chess matches are not that exciting. “I’ve been to chess matches. I can tell you that they’re dull. Not like in that show.” Of course, if the show accurately portrayed chess matches it would have very few viewers. But this is entertainment, remember? UGH. . .  fucking poetry-assassins. 

The implication that we must believe every detail of a piece of fiction has always irked me. I don’t give all obvious bullshit a pass, but a little is fine. A doped up, well dressed, cute little pixie who beats damn near everybody at chess, even when hungover and pilled to the gills— I can get behind that even if I know, yeah, it’s a dash unrealistic that anyone would be that good at chess. Or not. I don’t know and I don’t care. There’s a damn pandemic going on, folks. I’m indoors a lot. I like my distractions, and The Queen’s Gambit served me well enough.

I wonder if these critics penned smug take downs of Bugs Bunny when they were wee tots. Am I really supposed to believe that a rabbit can talk?

I’m not a big fan of Trainspotting, but I remember a friend hating the film because he said, “I didn’t believe any of those people were junkies,” yet he had no problem with Pulp Fiction, which is nothing but fantasy. Was his reaction based on the idea that Trainspotting is less cartoonish than Pulp Fiction? Because it isn’t. I mean, a guy falls into a toilet in the movie, so, um. . . ?

And there’s the other thing: whenever I see a film or TV show that begins with “Based on a true story” I have to wonder why that matters. But I suspect that viewers, consciously or subconsciously, afford the film or TV show making this claim a higher level of respect. This actually happened! WOW!

Why do we prefer experience, so-called truth, to imagination? What’s wrong with make believe? In some cases (the above referenced conspiracy theories) the consequences are huge, but in entertainment, why is nonfiction, or stories inspired by truth, somehow better than fiction? What do we lose when we toss fiction to the side so we can marvel at shit someone claims to have gone through? Do we lose the ability to imagine better worlds?

Let’s say we do. The obvious outcome of devaluing imagination has to be bad. I imagine (ha!) a society that accepts mediocrity, corruption, discrimination, inequality, and immorality as normal and dismisses ideas to address these wrongs as foolish. We all know politicians lie, racism and sexism are common, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, boys will be boys, you can’t fight city hall, what’s the point? Pass me that burger/bottle/needle/smartphone.

Apathy, people! That’s the outcome of a failure of imagination.

Liberals like myself are often called Pollyanna optimists who delude themselves into thinking anything might change. Why bother? Nothing changes. Well sure, not with that attitude.

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Having run through 98% of what’s currently streaming (or so it feels), I was happy as fuck to see something new on Amazon Prime Video. Well, not new, as I’ve already seen The Big Short, but that didn’t stop me from giving it another watch.

Along with having a fine if infuriating story, the form of the film is admirable. The praised and (I’m sure) maligned fourth wall breaks are not exactly new, but when the characters glance at the camera and confess that a detail in the story is made up, or that this part actually happened, director Adam McKay manages to both subvert the idea of the true story and reinforce the concern for facts in storytelling. Despite a tale being based on real events, we have to know that it’s too good to be true. This thought being buried in the subconscious, it’s easy to ignore the bullshit, but McKay had to know that the inner critic would pick apart the wilder moments in the tale. So why not address them? Why not have an actor look at us and tell us that this part is bullshit? The true story of how a couple of kids stumbled onto a crazy opportunity is not as fun or cinematic, so why not confess the lie? By doing so, McKay allows the viewer to feel let in, to have their inner critic quelled a bit. Later, when another actor tells us that this part is true, we believe it because we know the film is willing to tell us what to and what not to believe. Both our subconscious understanding that all stories are at least a little made up and our pesky need to believe are fed. Kinda genius.

I wish more films would do this. And more books. Why not just come out and say it: the important word in “based on a true story” is “based.” There’s some finesse in here that’ll gloss over the mundane. Character names may be made up. One person may be a stand in for three, because one is easier to juggle than three. Dialogue is almost entirely invented. But the spirit is true. And the important stuff, the stuff you really need to know, is real. In the case of The Big Short, what we need to know is 100% true, despite the artifice that makes us smile. Because the 100% true stuff isn’t funny at all.  

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I’m not asking that all stories structurally resemble The Big Short. And I’m not really arguing that people need to embrace fiction (or poetry) over nonfiction or jettison their love of true stories. I simply believe that we need to adjust our understanding of truth when dealing with art. What is the greater truth? Is it that war is hell? Okay, so if I get that message from Full Metal Jacket, a work of fiction, as opposed to Ken Burns’ Vietnam documentary, is the conclusion not the same? I may not grasp the entirety of the conflict, sure, but I’m brought to a different, equally valid truth by the fiction. Would a true story of doomed lovers be any more powerful than Romeo and Juliet?

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe is a fantastic book. Chock full of detail— and photos lending veracity to the tale—the book is one of the best accounts of what the Irish call The Troubles that I’ve come across. But I picked it up because I’m a fan of Seamus Heaney, whose poem “Whatever You Say, Say Nothing” inspired the nonfiction book’s title. And while the poem, considerably shorter, could never be as packed with information, there no less truth in it. Why not read both? Might that offer a truer truth, a more informed understanding of the reality?

We might do better with a richer diet. Nonfiction with some poetry supplements. A couple of novels and some plays thrown in to offer spice. We’ll be as nourished, and it’ll all taste better.

On Teaching and Failing (a sorta rant)

I’m not a great teacher. Or a bad one. Neither the inspiring type you’d see in the movies—no one’s standing on their desk for me—nor the guy sleeping in his chair while his students take cookie-cutter exams. I assign papers— rarely, if ever, tests. My teaching life has been dominated by reading essays (mostly written by college freshman) and trying to find ways to make the students writer “better,” whatever that means. To get them to do this, I assign readings that I think will generate interesting discussions followed by informed essays. Not always the case. Is there a universally interesting topic?

In my decade + of standing in front of a room of excited, anxious, bored, eager to impress, combative, tech distracted, or not-quite-sure students (and almost eight months of trying to teach over Zoom), I’ve made some observations, as well as serious adjustments to my plan. Much like the Cubs fans whose mantra “Next year” has carried them through many a sad autumn and winter, no semester is finished before I proclaim, “I know what to do differently next time.” But here’s the thing: I really don’t know. I have no idea what I’m doing.

This is not something I’m eager to admit. While I am self-aware enough to know that, yeah, no one’s reading this, and if they are they’re probably not in the position to offer me a sweet gig teaching creative writing, I’m nevertheless hesitant to type those words. Years of faking it until I make it (should be any day now) have conditioned me to never admit the truth: I’m flying half blind.

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My first semester teaching college composition was brutal. Thankfully, I had sample syllabi to guide me, some support from my department director, and my own history of taking comp classes to draw on. I remembered the assignments I had to endure: describe baseball to a Martian. Pretend you were burglarized and write a police report about the goods stolen from your room. That sort of thing. The comp teachers were interested in detail, description, precise language, and explanatory sentences. They were not interested in validating our lived experience or personhood or any other trendy grad school phrases I might employ. They wanted us to write well.

We students, naturally, assumed there was a way to write well, and that we did not possess the skill to do so. Or maybe some did, because writing well was an inherent talent, and one either had it or didn’t.

I didn’t. I was a remedial kid all through high school who went directly to a junior college because my guidance counselor didn’t think it was worth my time to apply anywhere else. And while that school (Moraine Valley Community College, god bless it) remains the best of all the colleges I’ve attended (and I have an MA from Northwestern, thank you very much), it does not share the reputation of the so-called “real” universities. I was a lousy student in high school made well aware that I did not belong in a real college. I knew who I was and what I wasn’t, and I was not an academic, much less a good writer. Go ahead and try to teach that kid.

Pecking away at the clunky keyboards of 1989’s computer labs, I approached my assignments like the chores that they were. As much as I hated tests, I would have welcomed them instead. At least a test ends before long. I knew I had the hour to do my best, make guesses, pray for a C. Then it’s over and time to forget it, go grab a smoke with the gang in the student center before the next class. But an essay. . . There’s a due date, sure, but writing it means making time. It means ignoring the radio and the TV and the nice weather and sitting in front of a computer (not an everyday thing in the late 80s-early 90s). It meant going to a computer lab, never fun. I was freaked out by the amount of time I had to write. Of course, I spaced out until I had no chose but to admit defeat, say fuck it, I can do this tomorrow, the assignment hanging over me. There’s always tomorrow until there isn’t.

But here’s the thing: for as much as I hated writing, I liked reading. Mostly horror novels, then some “literary” stuff, Anthony Burgess and George Orwell at first, their books being sensational enough to capture my interest. And then I found Kurt Vonnegut in the library and his books were all I wanted to read.

None of this was on the syllabus. Most of it was dismissed by the academy, if the academy deniged to comment. To this day, I know English profs who’ll scoff at the suggestion that Kurt Vonnegut is the finest 20th century American novelist. I’m open to the debate. The profs might bring up names like Pynchon or DeLillo or other heavyweights with heavy books, but they usually just assess Vonnegut as “light” and fun, sure, but not “serious” literature. Because serious literature, apparently, should not be fun. It should be homework.

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I’ve read comp theory and other pedagogical texts that discuss the important link between reading and writing. But what’s the point when we’re asking our students to read what we think they should and write in ways that are foreign to them? If any of my teachers would’ve allowed me to write a paper on Stephen King or Vonnegut, I might have seen myself differently. I might have understood that I had a right to enter the big academic discussion and share my point of view. I know this for certain, because a teacher did just that. I enrolled in a class through my community college’s Alternative Learning Center where I got to pick my teacher, and, with his blessing, I got to pick the books I wanted to read. The sole requirements of this independent study were that I check in with him periodically and write papers on the books, the topic of which he’d help me develop, but mostly I was free to write what I wanted, reactions to the horror novels I chose as the course’s theme, observations on the structure of the novels, insights into the way this genre adhered to classic storytelling arcs as well as ways they subverted them. I wrote with abandon and joy. I got an A.

Those essays were likely crude mish-mashes of awkward sentences and goofy syntax, not to mention littered with spelling errors (these were the days before Grammarly or even spell check). But my instructor wanted to see something other than perfect grammar and punctuation. He was interested in my ideas and reactions to the texts. And I had a lot to say about them. He must have known that, eventually, I’d get to a place where my thoughts were better expressed. His job was to get me thinking. And the best way to do that was to let me explore a genre I enjoyed. Of course, he worked with me to make sure I was articulating something, analyzing the texts, and thinking beyond my cursory responses, none of which felt like a chore because I loved the material. And I loved the conversation, the discussion between me and the text and the instructor. I loved sharing my insights, even if I didn’t think of them as insights. Probably because I wasn’t burdened by the need to produce insights.

Within a year, I reading Byron, Kerouac, Bukowski, Anne Sexton, Hemingway, the sort of stuff I can’t read now but got me excited as a twenty-year-old. But my writing didn’t improve. That may have had something to do with my next step in higher education, for I’d gone as far as I could in junior college. Transferring to a university, I experienced a culture shock. No one was holding my hand or letting me find my own footing or whatever other metaphor I might mix. Thinking that I’d had some success with reading books and writing on them, I declared myself an English major. I was assigned the classics: Don Quixote, Astrophil and Stella, Don Juan, The Divine Comedy, and a bunch of other books I was half-ready for. Some stuck, others. . .  not so much. But I managed to write a few good papers before I decided that school and I were a mismatch. The root of this conclusion: I didn’t understand the logic of taking classes not in my major that I would only pass by the skin of my teeth. I wasn’t learning anything, just memorizing enough to get a C, at best. And yet I was supposed to take on more debt so that I could pretend I knew something about algebra?

My rejection of college, this complaint about core requirements, was hardly original. I was not the first to make this criticism. And while I can (sorta) defend the core curriculum now, I’m sympathetic to the problem: students are not being told why they need to know a little about philosophy, science, mathematics, literature, and history. And they are not made to see that all these studies are related. But, and this is the biggest issue, they are being graded on their ability to grasp concepts they don’t think they need to know. Not to mention a college degree has become the new diploma, a rite of passage before one goes off to the professional world. How exactly is one supposed to “appreciate” poetry if they’re just in school to get a BA and then, hopefully, a steady gig?

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As I am not the first to make any of the above observations, what I am about to propose is also nothing new. But that hardly means that this proposition is without merit. Scores of academics will disagree, possibly just as many who might agree—there’s no way for me to measure, as I’m a non-tenure track faculty member and need not burden myself with making a qualitative or quantitative study of this. I’m just a guy writing a blog post, so I can write whatever I want without backing any of it up. What fun!

The idea, right. . .  here goes:

Grades are dumb. We should stop giving them. They serve no real purpose. Sure, they allow us to evaluate students, rank them, give them a sense of satisfaction or, all too often, failure, but what do they really mean? Maybe, and for all I know this may not be the case, they make more sense in a math class where there are right and wrong answers and a good (if confusing) system of demonstrating why and how an answer is right or wrong, but for English classes? Nah. They do more harm than good.

I’m currently wrapping up a semester with one class devoted to tutoring pedagogy. It’s a fun class for me, and the students appear to enjoy it. This is a class that requires a set amount of “experiential credits” mostly achieved through tutoring my other students in ENG 101. Of course, this being a class held over Zoom, earning these credits is not always easy. But even if we were meeting face-to-face, the outside of class requirements are difficult for busy students to complete. One student sent me an email arguing that I am valuing quantity over quality. If they are able to generate good reflections and create a solid tutoring philosophy from three sessions—all three possibly offering different experiences that cover a decent range of tutoring challenges—then are they not enough? Do students really need a full seven sessions, especially when their time is otherwise taxed? What else am I doing here but generating anxiety?

I knew this already. I’ve often dropped a few of the experiential requirements or found ways for students to earn these credits through alternative assignments. My student wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. And yet, every year I make it mandatory that the students spend at least seven hours outside of class working as tutors. Because, I guess, seven is the correct number? Ironically, I only make my actual tutors—the ones getting paid—train for approximately three hours (the very number my student suggested was sufficient).

It appears I’m as guilty as the rest. Rather than let the students develop the curriculum with me, I impose one on them. There’s a standard, one above questioning. This is the way it is. Do it and do it without asking why and you’ll get a good grade. Question, defy, or slack when it seems pointless and watch your GPA suffer!

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To consider what I think education ought to be, we’ll go back to the philosophers, both students and teachers, who used to get together to talk about stuff for a long ass time. Rather than measure learning in some systemized way, they had a chat. The wise man (who knew he was wise because he knew how little he knew) asked questions, sometimes in an annoying manner, and then more questions once there were answers, because the answers often caused more questions, and a back-n-forth occurred. This was called discourse. The chats could be long or short. They might go on as long as they needed to or fizzle. But they were not confined to an hour and fifteen minutes, not counting the time it takes to document attendance and set up the damn PowerPoint slideshow.

The idea of Socrates giving Plato a letter grade makes me laugh. Well, now, Plato, you’ve done well this term, though you did disappear for a bit after Spring Break, and now that we’re a week away from the final exam, I’m concerned about the make-up work you need to complete in order to pass. Your last three quizzes were good, but you’ve missed more than the absences allotted by the syllabus, so I’m not sure you’ll be able to get by with more than a C-. You might consider taking this class again when you have the attention and time to devote yourself to it. If you have any other questions, email my TA.

Maybe I’m over-romanticizing classical ways of creating knowledge. After all, I’ve not read the Greeks for a long time (and only because a philosophy teacher made me), so I’m likely full of shit. But I do know that the way I came to see myself as worthy of remarking on anything related to school was through exploration of my own interests coupled with some engaging instructors who saw that their job was to get me to give a damn about the course rather than expect me to care or prostrate myself before their alter.

This is not to say that we should bend completely to the will of the students, but jeesh. . .  maybe start by appealing to them a little? In a class like ENG 101, often the first class incoming freshman take, what is accomplished by inundating students with material they can’t relate to? Sure, that’s going to be much of what they encounter in college, but maybe let’s get their feet wet with some topics they can respond to. And let’s have some discussion. Drill for skill quizzes and lectures where the students never get a chance to talk are doing nothing for the aspiring writer/thinker. They need to read, think, engage in discussion, talk, venture ideas, have them challenged, think some more, talk a lot more, get ideas, write notes, write drafts, have them read, get both feedback and feedforward, rewrite drafts after seeing the perspectives of their peers, add to their ideas, develop their arguments, and sure, polish their writing, but based not on strict grammar rules (many of them debatable) but to achieve a form of clarity that reflects a reader’s ability to follow the writer’s ideas. This comes only after the writer knows what it is they want to say, not to mention sees themselves as worthy of saying it.

When instructors complain about shitty papers, what they mean (when not being strict grammarians) is that the students are not making sense. This is likely because the students don’t know what they think about a subject because they have not been encouraged to see themselves as having anything to say. They don’t know or they don’t care. And so they churn out something resembling an argument that is muddled and confusing. When they know, when they care, when they feel permitted to comment, they comment with clarity, despite a few fragments and run-ons.

But I have to wonder: why are we even teaching them how to write?

At the risk of making my profession obsolete (more so than it is already), I can’t help but wonder what we really seek to achieve when we teach comp. Stanley Fish believes that the good comp class will examine writing with an emphasis on syntax and the way writing refines thinking. His critics argue he’s reinforcing classist and racist traditions that created so-called “standard English,” which doesn’t allow for regional or cultural dialects other than white English. Fish would hate my classes. He’d argue that what I am teaching are Social Justice Studies or Contemporary Issues courses. He disdains the practice of assigning readings that the students are expected to respond to at the expense of close scrutiny of sentence construction. And he’s probably right, but I don’t care. I know my students. The ones who like my classes tell me they like arguing about things, especially during class discussion. My hope is that they then make these arguments in writing, having the ability to come up with salient points and after addressing counterclaims verbally. Because most of us do this all day long. We talk, argue, often without thinking, sure, but sometimes the only way to understand what one really feels is through exhausting the knee-jerk reactions and addressing the constraints that produce opinions. We obnoxious instructors call this “Interrogating assumptions.” We push students to go deeper, sure, but only after they feel comfortable speaking their minds. Imagine that: a classroom of experts all qualified to discuss ideas and issues, all with points of view informed by their races, genders, cultures, religions, and unique experiences. Sounds a dash better than being lectured.

So again, I ask: why do we insist that the end result of this discussion be written essays? Okay, I know—the written word is a supremely beautiful thing, and important across disciplines, and clear writing is prized in just about every profession imaginable, but if my real goal is to have students be able to make strong arguments and examine ideas and develop “new knowledge,” and if they can do this without having to slog through textbooks and spend anxious hours trying to put in writing what could more easily come out of their mouths—and if what comes out of their mouths is likely easier for me to follow than the rushed essays that don’t resemble what I call “good writing”—then what’s the point? Why not judge them on in-class discourse? The ideas may be as defensible as any they’d pen, yet, when grading the written work, I’ll ding them on grammar and, god help us, MLA formatting? Fucking silly, really.

*

Might we practice a form of education that allows students to co-develop the curriculum? Might we spend more time (without any clock ticking to tell us that the class is soon to conclude) engaging in verbal discourse, following the natural progression of a conversation with its many strands of thoughts and related ideas and, sure, digressions? Might we make education voluntary, subsidized, a thing born of a desire to grow and learn and challenge, something fun, an enterprise that needs no long think pieces or blog posts (ahem) to justify? Might we create a space for free-flowing dialectics? Could we possibly divorce higher learning from the trade school mentality (trade schools, ironically, present better opportunities for “problem posing” education than some universities) that churns out trained professionals? Might we return to a place where education, at this level, is seen as a chance for intellectual development, not a necessary step before going to law school and getting a clerkship, first-year job, partnership, mansion, boat, trophy spouse, secret paramour, divorce, ulcer, forced early retirement? Am I mad to imagine higher education with fewer administrators and less bureaucracy? Okay, sure— I’m going too far with that last question.

*

Look, I know I’m talking (er, writing) out of my ass here. Rather than let this already lengthy blogthing devolve into full rant, I’ll wrap up with a sort of statement of concerns:

• We in the comp circles are not really preparing students for the expectations that other classes will put on them. Their history, psych, soc, and poly-sci instructors are probably unconscious prescriptivists. They won’t be as willing as us to overlook grammar and punctuation errors.

• Those outside of comp circles need to chill on grammar. Look at the ideas. Relax a wee bit on the mechanics. Recognize that some of these so-called rules are indefensible, and all of them are made up anyway. Clarity is all that matters. When grammar and punctuation aid in clarity, bring it up. But is anyone ever really confused by a comma splice? Do too many adverbs really bother you (if so, sorry).

• All of us, regardless of our discipline, should rethink what we do in class. How much time do we allot for discussion? Do we encourage students to bring their experiences into the discussion? Are we making space for work that speaks to them or are we pushing the same texts we endured because, well, I had to read this, so fuck you? If we are teaching a survey course, can we look beyond the cannon? If we’re teaching the first half of a Brit Lit survey, have we included Aphra Behn? If we’re teaching 20th century American lit, how much of the Harlem Renaissance is represented? (For the record, I need to improve here.)

• Have we tried to reclaim a kind of educational practice that values real learning, not just validating students for going through the motions and memorizing things and regurgitating them for a passing grade?

• Are we, in our well-meaning liberal approach, validating students without challenging them? Are we being unconsciously oppressive by championing their “natural voice” even when that voice creates sentences that are objective muddy? Are we ignoring the English language learners who just want some understanding of how standard English grammar (with all its racist, classist, sexist baggage) works? These are the students who won’t feel “empowered,” despite all our rhetoric, when they don’t have command of the language.

• Have we explained the benefit of studying subjects outside of majors? Do we have a good justification for the core curriculum? Do we fail in our effort to create “complete” students?

• Are we too far gone?

Regarding the last concern: I sure hope not. And I don’t necessarily believe so. But I have my concerns. I doubt they’ll vanish, but I can try to do my best to address them and tailor my practice accordingly. Still, it’s a hard fight when the culture has morphed education into a product with tangible results and an arbitrary grading scale.

Oh well, no point ranting onward. Fight the good fight and work within the system to change it, I guess. That or quit and start my own school based on my half-assed ideas. Maybe I’ll get lucky and strike it rich and can operate this imaginary thinkatorium independent of the need to make profit. Best get to work on the big best seller.

Rethinking RHCP, or: How I Grew Up and Realized That This Band Sucks

It’s likely that you’re like me inasmuch as you retain fondness for music from your youth. Of course, there comes a time when one simply must grow up, but that hardly means abandoning everything that made you oh so happy during those awkward teenage years and early fumbles into adulthood. For males—if I may generalize a bit—those fumbles last way too long, thus the prevalence of 38-year-old dudes in Sublime T-shirts.

My Spotify playlist is not short on Slayer. Or Pig Destroyer. Or The Dead Milkmen. Spotify is as much a tool for discovering new (to me) music as it is a supplier of dopamine via nostalgia. But there are some bands that I’ve just outgrown. And while it’s not my place to suggest that you outgrow them too, I might ask: can you really defend this band?

Here’s one band I can’t defend: Red Hot Chili Peppers

My god, Red Hot Chili Peppers suck. And I don’t just mean that they suck your kiss. And let’s talk about that song for a second. It’s reason #1 that I stopped listening to this band. Prior to Blood Sugar Sex Magik, I was heavily into RHCP. Mother’s Milk and Freaky Styley were my favorite records, Uplift Mofo Party Plan somewhere up there as well. Three solid records, in my callow view. The band was raunchy and stupid, and I was 20. A perfect pair (not a tit joke, despite the fact that, you know, I’m discussing the fuckin’ Peppers). I drove to the Chicago Ridge Mall to pick up a copy of the last RHCP record I’d ever buy—the one where they spell Magic “Magik”—popped in the cassette (those were the days!) and rode back home to the strains of the saddest, slickest, dumbest thing I’d ever heard.

It’s not that Blood Sugar Sex Magik is a departure for the RHCP. It has that whole punk-funk thing in spades. The only differences between it and the previous records are that this one is really long with waaaaay too many songs and that some of those songs are serious, or as serious as a song can be from a band called Red Hot Chili Peppers. Okay, sure, Anthony Kiedis was working some shit out with “Under the Bridge” and, I dunno, trying for once to be sympathetic to women on “Breaking the Girl”, and good on him for trying, I guess. But, you know, hard to take these stabs at profundity seriously when they’re paired with “Suck My Kiss”, which remains the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. And I’m well aware that “Muskrat Love” exists.

“Suck My Kiss” sums up this band: seems kinda edgy when you first hear it, but quickly becomes irksome. And, frankly, embarrassing. Not just for them; the listener is embarrassed as well. It’s a song that does nothing good for anyone. A 3 minute 39 second squirm is one appropriate response, the other being an eye roll. The riff is. . . fine, though hardly impressive, especially as it comes from a band that people constantly tell me is populated with good musicians. The lyrics though. . . insufferably dumb, salacious only if you’ve never actually had sex, and delivered in the quintessential white boy rap style that plagued the early 90s. Thankfully white people have grown up and stopped rapping and slapping their bass guitars. Well, most of us have.   

I won’t go into “Sir Psycho Sexy”. But seriously: shame on everyone involved with that song.

So yeah, Blood Sugar Sex Magic (let’s spell it correctly, guys—you’re not Aleister Crowley) was the record that made me rethink my interest in a band that uses a close-up of an asshole as their logo. The question being: can I defend this band? The answer, unequivocally: no.

One last thing about Anthony Kiedis:

Without a doubt, he’s the biggest douchebag in rock and roll, and that’s saying something. I think I might be able to stomach RHCP were he not involved with them. Those early records buried his vocals a bit, which is why they were tolerable, but the clearer his voice in the mix, the worse the effect. Who told him he can sing anyway? It’s a bit of a shame that his strength is white boy rap, because that should not be anyone’s strength. Case-in-point, my favorite band: Mr. Bungle, fronted by Mike Patton who certainly has some sins on record. But Patton’s more than atoned for Faith No More’s “Epic” through decades of incredible music. And he can fucking sing. But Kiedis has always had beef with Patton, as he accused Patton of stealing his act. And you know what, maybe there’s a valid claim that the early work of Patton has some RHCP DNA in it, but, um, Anthony. . . have you heard your records? So, you invented funk music? Nothing derivative on Freaky Styley?

Anyway, years after Patton had established himself as an adventurous, multifaceted vocalist, and after Mr. Bungle released three records full of composition and musicianship RHCP couldn’t touch on their best day, Kiedis was still holding a grudge, so much so that he got Mr. Bungle kicked off a series of festival gigs. Keep in mind that RHCP were one of the biggest bands in the world and Mr. Bungle was not. It’s never a good look for a middle-aged millionaire to throw hissy fits or be the petty Goliath. Ask Lars Ulrich. Bungle being Bungle, they retaliated hilariously by dressing up as the Chili Peppers, mocking their drug use on stage, and playing a bunch of their songs to prove how easy they are to learn and perform. No one, save for the audience of that Michigan concert, knew about it, until the bootleg of that show leaked (YouTube has the whole thing—worth a watch). And thank you to the bootlegger for capturing that mockery and reminding me that the Chili Peppers are laughably overrated and, at best, a juvenile joke I thought was funny when I was a younger man. Oh, to be a kid again. Actually. . . nah. I’m happier now, and my music collection is better.

How to Make Your Wife’s Coffee

You’ll want to wait until she’s ready. This might be anytime between 6:30 AM and 8:00 PM. And she’ll likely want more than one cup, but not right away, so best to make enough to save for later. 

Get the water going first. Fill the kettle between 3 and 4, put it back on the base, hit the switch, let the electricity do its job. Don’t put more water in—your tea will come soon enough. Her coffee needs immediate attention.

While the kettle is starting its initial rumble, get the French press carafe out. It should be sitting on the counter recently washed from the last cup you made her. First put in cinnamon. Don’t be shy with it. Add enough cinnamon to choke a baby. Squeeze the large plastic bulk container three or four times. The ground spice will release its vapors. See them reaching over the lip of the carafe, floating to whatever waits for us. Go ahead and sniff if you dare, but be ready for your nose to revolt. It’s early. This could be what you need to wake up. You’ve been on autopilot. Shake off sleep. You’ve got work to do.

The coffee? Bustelo. Finely ground, dark. You used to drink it. You introduced her to it. It would ruin your stomach if you went back to it. (Don’t worry—there’s a nice cup of Scottish Breakfast coming your way.) Three heaping spoonfuls because it’s morning. Two if it’s evening. It’ll obscure the cinnamon like a lunar eclipse. Don’t forget to swirl the carafe so the two powders mix. The secret’s in their unity. Cohabitation. 

By now the water should be agitated. Steam is escaping the top of the kettle. Put your cold hand over it. Feel how nice that is? It’s chilly today, even though it’s summer. Rain storms all morning. Woke the dog, which woke you. You’ve been sitting with him on the couch while she sleeps. You got some reading in, taking advantage of the quiet, the most you’ll find all day before Netflix and podcasts and Instagram videos. The book is a slog, but you felt compelled to go on with it. Near the end—why quit now? But be honest—you were happy when she sent you the text: Cafe? It released you from pretending to enjoy that book. 

Pour the water until it’s near the top. But not all the way. Leave some room for the angels to do their work. 

Now you can fill the kettle again. But be sure to ask if she’s hungry. A banana? Can do. With the coffee? Sure.

The tea bag should steep for as long as you like. You’ve stopped drinking coffee, but you still like strong beverages. A tea bag too soon removed is not for you. Might as well drink hot water. And her coffee won’t be ready for plunging for at least 8 more minutes. 

The dog is confused. Why all the back and forth when the couch was so nice? The thunder’s died down, but there’s a gloom still. Anything might happen. He’d prefer it if you stayed put, let him mold himself to you, shake a bit until he’s sure the skynoise is no more.

Be careful when you plunge. Too fast and it’ll be a mess to clean up. Or you might let the grounds infiltrate the brew. And maybe don’t plunge all the way. Stop short. Feel the pressure? Good. Ease up. Then maybe one last push. There you are.

Pour some oat milk into her mug first. Then a tot of cream. (As in “a tot of whiskey,” which is what Virginia Woolf said she drank with her friends during her younger, poorer days—just a tot because they had not.) Not even that much, though. Just enough cream to give the cup some texture. There should be less than a fourth of the mug full. Then the coffee. No need to stir. The cream has accepted the coffee. Changed it. It’s the color of her skin. Maybe a little darker. We haven’t been to the beach much this summer. 

It’s likely cooled, so microwave for 37 seconds. 

Bring her the coffee and banana. Your tea can wait another minute. What now? Something to dip into the coffee? Disgestives? Just a couple? Something for her teeth. Go ahead and roll your eyes. Maybe make a crack about how a man’s work is never done. Good house husband. Just a small joke. Don’t push it. Remember, you’ve got fuck all to do today. Except maybe some writing. And you’re always looking for a reason not to work on that. So be happy when she asks for a salad later, tells you you’re the only one who can make it the way she likes. Like this coffee. No one else. 

Remember when you went overseas without her? You had to write the steps down, go into specific detail. And she still said your coffee was better, even though there’s no big secret to the recipe. And she was glad you got to spend a week at a writing workshop, but you could tell she was happier that you were back to make her coffee.

Maybe it’s time to get started on syllabus revisions. There’s still a month before classes, but why put it off? It’s not like you have anything else to do today. Except maybe write. And you know you’ll just end up changing the dates on some old syllabus and worry about curriculum review later. Leave a bunch of TBAs on the schedule of readings and assignments. Do the students even read the fucking thing? 

It’s stopped storming. Take the dog for a walk.

And now that you’ve let the dog wander according to the dictates of his nose, now that he’s expelled feces and urine, take him home and feed him. A scoop of kibble. Then the wet food. Lamb and sweet potato pâté. The only carnivore in the house. Sneak a pill in the pâté. He’s happy eating. She’s happy with coffee and digestive biscuits. You could use another cup of tea. Earl Grey. Lapsang later. Smokey. Like the scotch you’ll drink after dinner because you’ve been good and not had a sip since last Monday. Just a glass of Riesling Tuesday and a bottle of Guinness Thursday while cooking. It’s Sunday. Rainy. Gray. The day should end with a glass of single malt, maybe after you finish reading that book, maybe after you finish some minor syllabus edits and, who knows, manage to do some writing. A celebration after you make dinner for the both of you, walk the dog again, feed the dog again. Don’t forget to do some laundry today. Nearly out of clean socks. You hate the feeling of slipping into yesterday’s socks, that weird stiffness in the sole. Your foot’s residue. You hate it. Never want to feel that again. You’re not 22. You’re not some bohemian hipster asshole. Not anymore. You have a job, one that gives you summers off with nothing to do. You no longer dream of being a published writer. You are one, even if no one reads your books. Even if they couldn’t find them if they wanted to read them. You’re not a kid anymore. You’ve seen the world and expanded the limited scope you were so sure was vast. You’ve lost weight, stopped smoking, quit coffee, quit meat, started jogging even though you don’t love it. You’re going to live longer than you imaged you would when you were 22 and fat and smoking and eating lousy food and going weeks without washing your clothes and totally fine wearing yesterday’s socks and shoes with holes and newspaper stuffed inside. All because of her. So enjoy the day and be ready to go back to the carafe and pour the cold coffee in her mug and microwave it for 1:37 exactly. Don’t forget the milk and cream. 

On Isolating (Blog on Random)

 The world needs many things, but blog posts, think pieces, and rants are not among them. Nevertheless, my capacity to help is limited, and I’ve already supported some local businesses by buying books and booze, and there are only so many Facebook lists a guy can make/read/stomach. Besides, Facebook is bringing out the worst in me lately. 

So yeah, here are some thoughts composed while social distancing, a term that will grow more annoying as its need increases.

Born for this

Despite liking my friends and family, I’m truly a homebody at heart. I’ve found sheltering-in-place surprisingly easy to the extent that, while not unsympathetic, I’m not sure why people are so annoyed that they have to stay indoors to avoid getting or spreading a potentially deadly virus. My apartment is not huge—I occupy a two-bedroom unit—and compared to the houses of many friends and relatives, well, it seems weird that they can’t find some sort of solace in the lives they’ve built.

Okay, let me walk that back a bit.

I understand that a lot of people enjoy being outdoors; they love their families and neighbors and like socializing with them, having coffee, sharing drinks, hosting dinner parties, inviting the parents of their kids’ friends over so that the tots can run around and cause havoc while the moms sip chardonnay and the men do whatever men do in the garage. Still, I have to say that—while it sucks that our lives have been so upended—all most of us are being asked to do is stay inside and not see people other than the ones we live with. 

I’ve said it before, but I’ll write it again: I can sum up humanity in five words: bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch.

Yeah, it’s not easy to see the things we’ve taken for granted (freedom to go where we like, a functioning economy, ‘round the clock conveniences) and the institutions we’ve relied on (a semi-functioning government, a working health care system) go to hell. I know this. But, if anything, what we should be pissed about isn’t that we have to stay away from people and make do with what’s inside our walls; we should be outraged by how precarious our way of life has always been. 

This is a time for reflection. The world will likely not be the same after this. I don’t know that it should be. My more radical friends—the ones who put their chips on communist ideas and have long talked about the inevitable collapse of capitalism—are, of course, sounding the horn and inviting the rest of us into their tent. And they have valid points, though I’ve long been skeptical of the either/or framework that suggests that the cure for the obvious ills, faults, and crimes of a capitalist system is a communist one. I’m more the democratic socialist type that thinks that capitalism might be reformed by socialist elements. Anyone who puts all of their faith in a political or economic ideology is, at best, well meaning but unrealistically optimistic, or, at worst, delusional. I know, I know—I’m being defeatist and borderline nihilistic here, but I just can’t get onboard with pure capitalism or communism or one true religion or anything so absolute. 

But I will agree that laissez-faire capitalism, as we have long practiced it, is clearly not working. So while we’ve got so much time on our hands, maybe we should dream of a better world, one where we actually value (and adequately compensate) the workers who are currently saving our asses, the ones in shops that need to remain open, the ones in hospitals that are dangerously starved of protective gear, the ones who drive trucks and grapple with heart disease, sleep deprivation, and isolation (we’re getting a taste of their lives now, aren’t we?). Maybe this is the time for us to see how fucking privileged we are. Only in a society as myopic as ours do we take to Facebook to vent about having to stay inside to do our part in what is an epic battle that will, by its end (assuming it ends) claim a lot of lives. Maybe not yours, maybe not mine. Because we have the ability to numb ourselves with Netflix and social media while so much of the rest of the world is knee deep in coronavirus. 

Which is not to say that we aren’t. Someone you know is either infected (knowingly or not) or unemployed because of this. If that’s you, you’re exempt from this rant. If that’s not you, please suck it up and do the very least you can do: stay the fuck home and avoid contact with humans. Dogs are better company, anyway.

Routine

Even those of us given to staying in have to stave off cabin fever. To stay sane, I’m adhering to a routine not unlike the one I’d developed as a working-outside-the-home man. I try to wake at a respectable hour. I shower. I shave when the scruff gets unseemly. I work out at home. I dress as if I’m going into the office. I’m teaching via Zoom, after all—can’t have the students see me in a faded black concert T-shirt. I walk the dog. I make breakfast (either something with egg or oatmeal). I have my morning black cuppa Scottish breakfast, my midmorning Earl Grey, my afternoon English rose, and my evening hibiscus tea. I busy myself with PowerPoint slideshows and grading essays. If there’s time, I edit the clusterfuck of a manuscript I spent the last seven months writing. I cook dinner for the Mrs. and me. I like the routine of cooking, the basic steps, even the washing of dishes. I treat myself to a square or two of dark chocolate and I limit my whiskey to three nights a week. (There’s a Guinness with most dinners, though.) I snuggle with the wife and we watch something. Often we finish the night with an episode of Parks and Recreation, because that delightful show washes off the horror of this pandemic just long enough for us to fall asleep.

The above paragraph betrays a lot of privilege. I’m in a good place. I have a spouse. I love her very much. I can’t imagine being quarantined with someone I used to love and have grown to dislike. I can’t imagine being isolated with an abusive partner. We have no kids. I can’t imagine being quarantined with children that need to be entertained, educated, fed, and cleaned. My dog is pretty happy with this situation. We’re home all the time—his dream!—and he never fusses when it comes to meal time. I don’t need to teach him anything. 

I have a job. I’m able to perform my duties remotely. It’s not ideal, but it works. 

I have enough money to be able to afford groceries. I’ve not felt the need to purchase things impulsively. Hell, this pandemic is saving me cash! 

I’m in a place where I can be content in my home because I have a lot of privilege. Not bragging or celebrating. Just acknowledging. That’s not everybody’s story. Suddenly I’m more sympathetic to those complaining. 

Movies watched since mid-March:

The Dead Don’t Die

Her

The Descent

Bloodsport

The Aviator

Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (half of it)

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Synecdoche, NY

Inception (half—I hate that film but the wife was watching it)

The Curse of La Llorona

After Truth

Rocky III

Road House

Uncut Gems

Happy-Go-Lucky

Cool Hand Luke (second half when I caught it on cable)

Monty Python’s Meaning of Life

The Ten Commandments (most of it—fell asleep—it’s fucking long.)

Mr. Fix-it

I just Googled how to fix a dimmer switch that’s gone bad. Looks easy. I have the right tools. Jeesh, I might’ve once called a repairman to do this. Such a pampered prick.

Of course, now I see things in need of repair and wonder, How hard can it be? Anyone who knows me knows that I am not at all a handyman. There is real danger in me holding a tool. Due to slight boredom, the apartment may soon be uninhabitable.

Speaking of boredom

Only boring people get bored. Amuse yourself. Use your imagination. Read a book, for fuck’s sake. C’mon, now.

First wold pandemic

Thinking now of the many, many people posting to social media about how they now have to educate their own children, subsist off groceries that, while dangerous to obtain, they have hours in their days to gather, and amuse themselves in a world full of distraction. . .  my before-mentioned sympathy is fading. But I have to admit some things are a real pain the ass. Highest among them are the just now mentioned getting of groceries.

Today I went to the supermarket to play the stay-the-fuck-away-from-me game with my fellow shoppers. Sadly, not all of them wanted to play, and a good many coughed in my direction and ignored the recommendation that we stay six feet apart. Mask obscuring half my face, gloves on, I snatched as many foodstuffs as I could in the small window of time I’d allotted myself, then hightailed it home. Entering the home requires stripping off many layers, leaving them outside the apartment along with the non-perishables, then sanitizing a table top to place the groceries I deem immediately important, all of which get wiped down with disinfectant. The produce gets washed—even the bananas and avocados—in the sink, which is then disinfected. Before and after this ritual, I wash my hands to the point of near blistering.

Deciding that it made more sense to chop an onion than wash it, I removed the outer two layers and transformed the round shape to a pile of mismatched bits. That took some time and produced some tears. Felt good to cry.

Then I washed my hands again and wiped down the tabletops, sink, oven, light switches, faucet handles, doorknobs, remote controls, cell phone, keys, and my glasses with disinfectant. Then I had a cup of tea and, exhausted, a much-earned nap.

That the getting of food and integrating it safely within my home requires such effort is, sure, a bummer. But again, this is a first world problem. I mean, I’ve not missed a meal in the last month. I’ve likely gained weight. Could be a helluva lot worse. I see the absurd humor in my situation, but it helps to do all of this while listening to an audio book about life under threat of random bombings and sectarian violence. My woes are pretty small, really. But, you know. . . bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch.

Books I’m reading:

Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann (my main book: only 280 pages to go!)

Confessions of a Bookseller by Shaun Blythell (my bathroom book)

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe (audiobook—good for distraction while cooking/washing dishes)

Books I’m planning to read:

Dot in the Universe by Lucy Ellmann

Autumn by Ali Smith

A Girl is a Half Formed Thing by Eimear McBride

Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West

Hostages by Oisin Fagan

Four by Four by Sara Mesa

Music I’m digging:

Undercurrent by Bill Evans and Jim Hall

South of Heaven by Slayer

Various Merzbow recordings

Kentucky by Panopticon

On the Corner by Miles Davis

Assorted Mulgrew Miller, Red Garland, and Charles Mingus songs on Spotify

Blackstar by David Bowie

Civic Responsibility

While making a larger point about small actions that can have big impacts, Michael Pollan, in his essay “Why Bother?”, argues that part of what’s wrong with our society is that we’ve outsourced our basic needs. We rely on doctors for health care, agribusiness for food, construction companies for housing, and so on. While few of us can be so self-sufficient as to be carpenters, paramedics, gardeners, and cooks, what struck me about Pollan’s point is that we’ve gotten so good at producing comfort in this country that we expect it constantly. We demand that our favorite produce be available at all times, even if it doesn’t grow in our part of the world and is out of season. We assume that we can get cookies delivered at 2:00 AM after a night of sloth and smoking weed. We ask that our every quirk, kink, and yen be catered to and satisfied by the simple pressing of a button. 

I’m no fan of roughing it, but right about now, the old hyper-convenience seems like madness. And speaking of roughing it, why is it that people love to go camping? Is it because we’ve divorced ourselves from some basic, possibly essential ways of living that we have to reclaim our inner pioneer by sleeping on dirt and eating hot dogs burnt by an open fire? Perhaps if we did eschew a few conveniences and reacquaint ourselves with everyday forms of roughing it we could save on campground fees and be better prepared when the shit inevitably hits the fan. We might be ready to plant our own food (some of it, at least), fix the things that break, find ways of doing for ourselves instead of calling an “expert.” 

Or maybe we should just enjoy our luxuries in moderation? Going green for a day—turning off the TV, the computer, the iPhone—will not only have environmental benefits, it might allow us to be better prepared for times when the cable is out, the Wi-Fi is spotty, websites are crashing, shit is going south. It might afford us time to sit in silence (harder to do than ever), re-familiarize ourselves with our thoughts, or, I dunno, read a book again (I can recommend this one). Maybe we’ll revive the lost art of conversation? Maybe we’ll decide to write a letter instead of sending a text.

On that: yesterday, a card arrived in the mail from my wife’s cousin. He and his wife took the time to send us a handwritten note expressing their hope that we’re doing well and their desire to meet for dinner when all this is over. They included a note from their newborn son as well. And they know us well enough to have picked a card with a dog on it, a truly personal touch. This small gesture fucking floored me. Yeah, they’re sending texts and posting photos to Instagram, and as much as a lot of that has caused amusement, the card really meant something. How fucking hard is it to make someone’s day with a hand written card or letter? Who does that anymore?

My mom likes to tell the story of the Christmas Eve night when our power went out. We lit candles and sat around and talked to each other until Com Ed got the juice flowing. That night, briefly celebrating Xmas in the fashion of the Ingalls family, made my mother incredibly happy. Just a small family being together without the distraction of electric entertainment, chatting over candlelight. Thirty (?) years later, she still brings it up.

So what might we do when the world returns to normal? It seems like this could be the chance to rebuild and make it better. I doubt that we will because I’m a cynical bastard, but if ever there’s a chance to evolve and progress, this is it. Of course, we’ll need to understand our civic imperatives, the first being to become involved in the political process. There are measures taken on our collective behalf that are decided by people we do not know, who do not have our interests at heart, and who are probably too myopic from living in their own bubbles to understand what they are doing. These people have phone numbers. They ignore emails, so call them. Inconvenience them as you’re being inconvenienced now. Demand that restaurant workers and Lyft drivers get paid a living wage. Fuck working for tips. It’s cruel and stupid. Stomp for a healthcare system that doesn’t need to consider profits. Reject the lie that we can’t afford it. We can. We prioritize the wrong things when we deny that healthcare is a right. Shame these politicians for kowtowing to corporate interests over those of the people. Demand oversight, regulation, reasonable restrictions, and accountability. Vote even though it seems futile. Ignore the people who tell you not to vote, both the cynics and the so-called anarchists. Listen to the anarcho-sydicists some of the time; learn from them, but don’t let your “activism” and outrage extend to inaction. Fuck slacktivism. Join movements that might change something. Understand that the movement you join is likely full of shit, though probably not as much as the ones we have now. Be skeptical but act anyway. Don’t hashtag this shit. That’s a start, but go deeper. Avoid writing think pieces (oh, yeah, right… okay, moving on).

Be well

Because I give a fuck.

Stay in

Because it’s the easiest thing you can do, even when it’s difficult.

My Problem with the Films of Quentin Tarantino

It’s not an exaggeration to state that in 1993 I (like so many college aged dudes) was very enthusiastic about Quentin Tarantino’s debut film Reservoir Dogs. It was a fresh bit of filmmaking, talky but hardly dull, punctuated by enough violence to earn it the adjective “edgy,” and hip without being nauseating (that would come one film later). It was playing in the midnight art house theaters and in dorm rooms, wherein I watched it repeatedly. It was all my friends and I could talk about.

True story: in 1993, I was in a dorm room with a number of young women, all of them scantily clad, a few wearing nothing but their bras and panties. One other guy was in the room with me. And what were we Y chromosome bros doing? Why, we were discussing Reservoir Dogs. At one point one of the females said, “This movie must be great since it’s all you two can focus on in a room full of half-naked girls.”

Since those wild and crazy days, Tarantino’s star has risen, fallen, risen again. Pulp Fiction cemented his name in the film history books. Riding on that success, earlier mediocre scripts were turned into mediocre films (True Romance, Natural Born Killers). Then came Jackie Brown (the last of his films I enjoyed), which, while quite underrated, made people brush the young filmmaker off. And then there was the guy himself. Each interview Tarantino did was a chance to watch a grown man act like a child. When he came back with Kill Bill, the press gleefully reported that he kept, and often drove, the infamous Pussy Wagon from the film. Of course he did.

Perhaps I am prematurely aged, but my love for Tarantino waned quickly. I liked Pulp Fiction enough to see it multiple times in the theater, but there were moments that shined brighter than others. I love everything about The Gimp. That bit of weirdness spoke to my burgeoning love of the absurd. I enjoyed (almost) everything about the middle section highlighting Bruce Willis’s character. I was iffy on the last act. The final scene in the diner went on too long. In fact, if one thing seemed to change from Reservoir Dogs to Pulp Fiction, it was the way the dialogue landed. Watching the first film, made up almost entirely of men talking to (and yelling at) each other, I was never bored. Nothing felt stretched too far. Would that I could say that about the follow up. The hipper-than-thou dialogue for which Tarantino is often celebrated tends to irk me. Or, worse, I get bored when the characters talk too fucking much.

Want an example? Consider the final show down between The Bride (revealed to be named Beatrix at that point, which is supposed to be a big reveal, though I’ve yet to figure why the fuck it matters) and Bill, the culmination of two films worth of killings and hyper-stylizing sword fights. After so much time, the scene finally arrives! But it’s almost immediately buried in a superfluous Superman analogy, long-as-holy-fuck chat, and a ridiculous anticlimax. If only fewer reviews had patted QT on the back for his dialogue, perhaps he might not have felt the need to let every damn word in his head leak onto paper, celluloid.

I know I’m in the minority. Tarantino has passionate (damn near rabid) fans. I’m used to reading/hearing lauds and praises heaped upon each new film, even when I disagree. I’m fine admitting that Tarantino’s films are just not my thing, that I don’t positively respond to them, and that that by no means negates the positive criticism his films receive. It’s my thing. That’s fine. But. . . can we maybe admit for a second that Tarantino’s strengths are in the visual composition of his films, the choice of music, the audio/visual manipulation of the viewer, and that the stories are often just okay?

The seams started to show when I saw the first Kill Bill. I couldn’t help but wonder why Lucy Liu’s character got so much screen time, even having an animated sequence devoted to her character, when Vivica Fox was quickly dispensed with. Sure, Lucy Liu was a big shot mobster in Japan and harder to get to and, in order to dispense with her guards, The Bride needed to get a special sword, adding a subplot about a retired sword maker and an overlong scene in a sushi bar. I suspected that QT wanted Kill Bill to be one long film, though, after the studio objected to a movie longer than two hours (these were the days before Marvel films made three hour film runs the norm) he split them up and padded out the now two short films. Obviously this is not the case. More likely: Tarantino just likes dialogue. And, apparently, so do his fans. Me? I’m less jazzed by long, talky scenes like the barroom chatfest in Inglorious Basterds.

Lest one think I am a man of few words (have you met me?), let me clarify. I love dialogue in film when it works, when it serves a purpose, or when it is doing more than signaling to the audience how cool and knowing the writer is. Half the time, Tarantino seems to be writing to remind his fans that he’s seen more films than they have, that he’s a product of geekdom, a student of pop culture, that it’s okay to be like him, obsessed with cinema to the degree that your friends hate you. I tend to roll my eyes at Sam Jackson’s, “It’s Kool and the Gang” or most of what comes out of Uma Thurman’s mouth in Pulp Fiction. That Tarantino cut a scene from Pulp Fiction where Uma Thurman interrogates John Travolta on video camera, asking if he is an Elvis or Beatles man, a scene that truly sucks, is a testament that he knows when to trim some fat. But more often I see his dialogue as too slick and cool, annoyingly so.

I think I get why people like him. I think it has to do with dedication to cinema in all its forms and wide history, his way of honoring film tradition, his commitment to using film as a means of rewriting history and perhaps pointing out why we love movies: the escape, the hyper-reality bordering on surreality, the sheer spectacle. And, as he has done since Inglorious Basterds, he has made it his mission to root his work in specific time periods and subvert the notion that stories must obey the facts of the era. The one thing I enjoy about Inglorious Basterds is the sight of Hitler getting assassinated. Sadly, many reviewers have pointed out that the trick has now been played too many times, thus, watching members of the Manson Family getting slaughtered before they can kill Sharon Tate, while gruesome fun, is pretty much expected at this point.

The above 1,000 plus words are a long way of stating that I saw my first Tarantino film since Inglorious Basterds (which I disliked so much it turned me off the guy, I thought, for good). Once Upon a Time. . . in Hollywood seemed like the Tarantino movie I might not hate, largely because of the setting. I’ll admit that I was in no mood to see Tarantino’s recreation of the Civil War south or the American west. I just didn’t want to see the props. I think it was Christoph Waltz’s big pipe in the opening scene of Inglorious Basterds, a prop that got a lot of laughs during the screening I attended. But late 60s California... that I could stomach.

Quick review: a lot of fun moments that add up to little. A lot of moments I don’t care for. Inoffensive. Un-impacting. But I didn’t hate it.

Of course, the film has netted Oscar nominations. That level of honor is par for the Tarantino course. I don’t know why. I’m, again, in the minority, but I can’t fathom why a movie that felt like a C+ story with an A+ look is getting high accolades.

This is the root of my problem with Tarantino. I find his stories to be sloppy, dull, or gratingly cool. There are, to be sure, moments that feel profound, but as entertaining as some of his work can be (in spots) I never leave feeling changed. At least not since Reservoir Dogs and, to a lesser extent, Pulp Fiction. And while it is hardly the goal of all art to change the viewer/reader/listener, work this universally praised should be more than a fun night out.

Now I feel the need to share some details about my taste in film. I love a lot of silly stuff. Horror films, comedies, bizarre cult movies. . . love ‘em. Some I think are as good as the so-called classics. I’d put Romero’s Dawn of the Dead and Alex Cox’s Repo Man among my favorites, right alongside The Third Man. I’ve seen Big Trouble in Little China more than any other film in existence. I’ve argued that After Hours is Scorsese’s best film. I’m all for fun, for pure entertainment. Not every film needs to be deep. So my criticism of Tarantino’s work as being trite tales in glossy packages is not a product of a theory that all movies need to be serious FILMS. I just don’t think that the level of form and content in his movies is always equal.

No one needs to agree with me. I’m not setting out to change any minds (who are you, anyway, reader?). I just wanted to do what I always tell my students to do when they are struggling to come up with thoughts on a subject—write until you figure it out. Maybe now I have a better grasp on why I can’t join the Tarantino party. Maybe I have a better idea of why I value what I value in art. Then again, maybe I’m full of shit. Maybe. Regardless, these are my thoughts and this is my blog. Thanks for letting me work that shit out.

Quick Dig: Winter Break Report

Hello.  

I usually reserve this page for a longish thinkish piece(ish) focusing on a book/band/something I dig (hence the blog name), among other essayish ishes. Not today. Today I wanted to write a quick, sloppy blogthing about how I’ve spent my winter break from teaching. 

First, there was xmas, which I prefer to Christmas because I’m on the front lines of the war on Christmas fighting against the holiday. Death to Santa. But I will say that my xmas was quite nice. I spent the eve of the day itself driving a considerable distance from home to see family, driving back toward home to see more family, driving home to see my dog who missed me during those hours of driving and familying. Then came the magic day of driving to see more family. Nothing like family.

Then there was New Year’s Eve, aka Amateur Night II (St. Patrick’s Day being so popular the amateurs demanded a sequel). This was spent watching movies, going to bed early, being woken by fireworks and/or gunshots and a nervous dog. My dog really hates the holidays. 

When not engaged in the above mentioned affairs, I wrote my ass off, drank lots of tea and a little wine, ate some good meals, went to the gym, walked the dog, took naps with the dog, read a few things.

Readings thus far in 2020:

Beckett’s great play Endgame, which gets better with age.

Michael Coffey’s book Samuel Beckett is Closed, which is fantastic stuff.

Professor Andersen’s Night by Dag Solstad, which is quite fascinating and not at all what I expected. 

Samuel Beckett: Anatomy of a Literary Revolution by Pascale Casanova (well, half of it, but I plan to finish it this week, and man, what a fantastic bit of lit crit this is turning out to be).

The Seafarer by Conor McPherson, which was a lot of fun, went in an interesting direction midway through, ended nicely, and takes place over xmas eve and xmas and so seemed quite relevant. 

As you can see, I’m in a Beckett phase. I tend to go through one every few years. And yeah, I make the sign of the cross these days while saying: “In the name of Joyce, Beckett, and Flann O’Brien,” but this phase seems to be particularly long. I’m seeing things in Sam’s work that are hitting me in ways they didn’t when I was a younger man. I think I was first attracted to the weirdness of the plays, the awe inspiringly dense novels, the near insufferable permutations of Watt. Now I’m responding with more than juvenile recognition along the lines of, “Yeah, this feels right—bleak and absurd and meaningless. That life, man.” Now I see insight, ideas, struggle, dare I say truth even though the idea of universal truths has long irked me. I dunno. . . I grow older and the books of my 20s seem different now. Some, like Beckett’s, feel deeper than others. Maybe I needed to grow with the books. Maybe I’ll respond differently at 80.

Nothing much else to report. I’m on my couch, dog at my feet, getting hungry, not writing my syllabi for the coming semester, writing this instead. But I can only prolong the real work for so long. So, so long.

Codependent No More: On Unfriending My Best Troll

The following essay was written some time ago. This is meant to explain the references to El Paso and Dayton, two towns that experienced mass shootings within days of each other. My suspicion is that anyone stumbling onto this little essay will have forgotten those events, as we are conditioned to forget tragedies perpetrated by American citizens, especially when they have to do with guns. I post the essay here and now after failed attempts to place it elsewhere and a sense of finally needing to get this off my chest in a public way.

*

Today I unfriended and blocked a Facebook friend because he claimed the recent mass shooting in El Paso was a false flag operation. The friend in question is not a real friend, at least not anymore, by which I mean that we knew each other when we were in high school and used to be close, but we haven’t breathed the same air— literally or figuratively— in years. So many IRL (ugh, acronyms) friendships migrate to social media, where they are preserved in digital amber to be taken out and looked at with nostalgia or something close to it, but few of these relationships can be called “friends” in the traditional sense. I’m hardly the first to make this point— a very dead horse by now— but it bears repeating for the purposes of what I’d like to get into for a bit.

My “friend” has been sending me troubling messages through Facebook for. . . wow, maybe a few years now. Coming from anyone else, these messages would be alarming. But I know him. Or knew him. I have spent enough time with him in the past to know that he is what my wife calls “a funny chicken,” sort of like an odd duck but without as much charm. He’s a weirdo. That’s fine— so am I. But his previous brand of weird manifested in obsessions with quirky music, deep fondness for the ‘80s pop culture on which we were reared, regular visits to swing sets well into his thirties, and an odd but benign fixation on Amy Fisher. None of this was too weird, though things got progressively stranger the longer we corresponded. 

Perhaps the most relevant story is the one about his BB gun. My friend bought this minor weapon, which he was excited to show me. We had plans to get together after I finished my shift at the rotten mail sorting facility where I worked. The thing about that job was that one never really knew when they were getting out. The mail needed to be sorted, and no one could leave until the task was complete. I estimated that I’d be done by 9, so my friend drove to my family’s home around then (these were the days before texting) and waited in his car for me to show. Growing impatient, and wanting to play with his new toy, he went to the backyard and started practicing how he’d pull the gun on a would be assailant, basically doing a Travis Bickle routine sans “You talkin’ to me?” My mother was in the kitchen and saw a shadowy figure with a gun in her backyard. She was seconds away from calling the police. Lucky for my friend, I walked in just as she was reaching for the phone.

That’s a typical story about my friend, and it paints an accurate picture of him: intimidating in dark, but in the light. . . just a harmless oddball. To be sure, he was (I can only use the past tense because, again, I’ve not seen him in years) a strange dude, though never so much that it bothered me. I’ve been told that I attract oddballs, that I have a higher level of patience for them than most people. This may be true, and is likely a reflection of my own oddball nature. I can certainly state that I find eccentricities fascinating. While not inclined to make a Kerouac style proclamation about how “the only people for me are the mad ones,” I’m often bored by conventional conversations, small talk, accepted ideas of normalcy, cookie-cutter theories, easy answers, slogans, anthems, popular notions of right and wrong. But that sounds pretentious— let me put it this way: my friend, like many other people I’ve known, was rarely boring. And I apparently like that, even if the excitement gives way to ugliness. How else do I explain putting up with racist rhetoric and aggrieved male bullshit for the last few. . . again, has it been years?

For a large amount of time I’m still trying to calculate, my only interaction with this person has been through a computer. First emails to my work address. Long ones that waited for me each morning as I drank coffee and prolonged the daily tasks. Before answering my boss or the numerous clients waiting for replies, I responded to my friend’s angry missives. And they were quite angry. He had his pet issues: liberals, the Frankfurt School, socialism and communists and Marxists (all the same to him), the LGBTQ community, feminists, Muslims, minorities, basically anyone who was making his tiny world seem smaller. Claims of white genocide were common. Brutish quotes and skewed data pulled from Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, and Jordan Peterson were repackaged in drunken screeds against all things leftist, and often at me directly. I was no longer Vince; I was the enemy. The progressive Marxist who was either directly plotting to unseat white men from their place of power, or just the useful idiot who’d been duped by the sinister forces of The Left. Gays were out to force their agenda on straights. Feminists were seeking to wrest control from men, upsetting eons of established order and betraying the cherished archetypical traditions that were just the natural way of things. A secret plot to rid the world of fair skinned, red headed humans was underway. Immigrants and refugees were flooding white spaces and muddying things with their pigmentation.

It’s not like every message was so overtly ugly. He did write a lot of things that were just defensible enough to give him a shaky leg to stand on, though anyone with a moderately critical eye could see the larger point: cherished traditions were being destroyed by progressive ideologies. The world was unfair to him specifically, and the cause was well-meaning, wrongheaded liberalism. When I called him on his racism— when he, for example, claimed that whites were more intelligent than other races— he replied along the lines of, “I’m not a racist! There is data that shows the average IQ of different races with whites being the highest, second Asians, and down the line to blacks being lowest.” That this would strike any reasonable person as modern day eugenics, and that sociopolitical realities underpin whatever goofy data he presented, was lost on this Mensa member. (I once told him that “mensa” in Spanish means stupid girl, a point he was not happy to receive.) 

The thing is, he would often apologize. He has (and here I can confidently use the present tense) a drinking problem. I’d seen it in person. And I have years of documented evidence of it in writing. There was a reason he wrote me these gross messages at night while I was asleep. He was up late, drunk, feeling vulnerable and angry and untethered. He needed an outlet. I was willing to give him one.

Not anymore. Though lines had been crossed time and again, today I decided that enough was finally enough. What fueled this decision was the tragic news of another shooting, this time in Dayton, Ohio just hours after a seriously terrifying event in El Paso, Texas. And, with the news of the second active shooter, the dead, the wounded, the horror of it all, the numbed reactions of so many (myself included), the immediate call for increased oversight and regulations on the firearm industry, the more “radical” call for banning all guns, the reactionary “Now, now. . . ” from second amendment advocates— all of which predictably precipitated feckless calls for “someone” to “do something,” bullshit thoughts and prayers, and sickening statements from the NRA— none of which will change a fucking thing. . . atop all of this I saw a message waiting on Facebook. Like a scab I couldn’t stop myself from scratching, I opened it, read it. My friend— likely while intoxicated, but is that really an excuse?— claimed that El Paso was a false flag operation conducted in the name of confiscating guns from American citizens in an effort to usher in a leftist police state. My friend had crossed another line. This time I could not let it pass. 

I replied as follows: “You disgust me. We’re finished.” Then I blocked my friend. 

This seems so silly. Blocking, unfriending on Facebook. . . it’s kind of ridiculous, this 21st century way of being human. Much more has been written on the contemporary culture’s manner of social interaction, and I’m all for taking Silicon Valley and technosolutionism to task, but that’s not really what I’m trying to explore here. No, what I’m concerned with is why the recent horrors in Dayton and El Paso, and my friend’s sickening conspiracy theory, have caused me to finally end what was, sure, a dysfunctional friendship, but also one of the longest I’ve maintained. And why exactly am I going back to Facebook to see if my friend has read my last message to him? And what’s with these guilty feelings?

I can explain the last question simply: I was raised Catholic, so guilt is in my bones. Sure, I’ve renounced the faith, but that’s not enough to escape the feeling that I am largely culpable in any and all situations that befall me. My friend is a racist, sexist, quasi-white nationalist— must be my fault. Not sure how, exactly. Where I can pin some blame is on the way I handled things all these years. I fed the troll. I replied to his messages. I answered his emails. I engaged when I should’ve stepped away. There were many times when I simply ignored him. That would usually result in more messages. Lots of them. It seemed easier to answer him and be saddled with one angry diatribe as opposed to ten. Then I tried humor. He’d write something about how he was looking forward to the day when leftism destroys itself, a day when order will be restored, the day when he’ll have the last word. I would reply: “It’ll be great once white men are finally in change of things.” Not exactly a gentle joke, but it seemed to cool things.

Neither snarky gags nor serious arguments convinced my friend that he was deluded, echoing the ugliest and angriest voices, voices that believe solely in their own craven agendas, in building their brands. Voices that would scoff at him, a man whose addiction provided temporary comfort while it pushed him further into a jaundiced worldview. My friend was in trouble. While I often pleaded with him to get help, stop drinking, find something in his life to offer meaning aside from hateful tribalism, his stabs at sobriety were brief, always failing. But he tried. He’d send me messages announcing the number of hours, then days he’d been sober. And I cheered him. I told him to stay strong. But it was only a few days before an early morning Facebook message waited, characteristically sprawling and bellicose. 

I tried explaining it to my wife. There was no one else for my friend to turn to. He wasn’t interested in meeting me for coffee, and, truth be told, I wasn’t really interested in seeing him either. But we had a past. We were once friends in the traditional sense. A lot of people abandoned him when we were young. He had that effect on people. I stayed with him. I cherished his oddball behavior back before it turned hateful. He always struck me as kind at heart, maybe even meek. It would’ve been impossible for me to imagine him uttering an unkind word against anyone. He was intelligent, though his mind could be so narrowly focused on his interests to the exclusion of anything else. Interests that became obsessions. Sure, he was smart, but also unwise. Callow at the age of 49. We were both nerds. I was (am) a book nerd, a lover of cult TV shows and movies, the annoying prick who’ll quote skits from Monty Python and The State, a metalhead, un-athletic, goofy looking— the kind of kid who got his ass kicked on the schoolyard. My friend was a different kind of nerd, but nerd he was. And we had that bond between us. And then we grew up and apart.

This is how it works: you lose touch with childhood pals. You pursue your adult life, they theirs. You move to a different part of the city, or maybe a different state— maybe a different country. You lack proximity, so you stop cultivating the friendship. It happens. Once upon a time, that would’ve been the end of things. You might run into that person at a high school reunion— assuming you were foolish enough to attend— or maybe even on the street. And those encounters would be brief, awkward. But not in the era of Facebook. Now we have the ability to reconnect with lost friends. We get to see their children, their spouses, their vacations. We get to see that they’ve gained weight and lost hair. We get to be voyeurs, taking in their carefully constructed narratives. Look how happy! But if we were friends with an oddball, one with a drinking problem and the kind of loneliness that begs for any tribe that’ll have them, we do more than spy on past relationships. We interact, however remotely. This is to say that, much the way a lot of things changed when the internet came crashing into our lives, my friendship with this individual morphed from supportive co-nerd to enabling adversary. 

What did I get from this combative cyber friendship? Well, I got to feel like I was right. Moral superiority is addictive. My friend got drunk on booze and a false sense of victimhood. I got loaded on self-righteousness. It was an easy fix to score. I’d see the long message from my friend. I’d pick apart his dumb argument and offer what I was sure was a brilliant perspective. I’d send my response, feel the waves of pleasure run through me. I was right; he was wrong. I was good; he was bad. 

God, I’m an asshole.

I should’ve left him alone. I should’ve told him to fuck off years ago. But a heavy mix of guilt (after all, without me, he would have no one to “talk” to) and the need to prove my own moral worth kept me active in this, I think, decade long epistolary argument. 

And now I’ve ended it. Why now? Why not ten years ago? Why not way back when he sent me the first signs of his growing far right beliefs? When he insulted women, gays, minorities? When he accused me of treason, which I read as him saying I deserved to die? Why all the efforts to change his mind? Why the arguments? I guess I just needed my fix.

I sincerely hope that my friend finds help. I believe he is lost, but can be found. I remember the socially awkward oddball I loved way back when we were both younger men. He’s in there somewhere, buried under layers of anger, resentment, depression, alcoholism, and easy answers peddled by far right hucksters. But I know that I cannot be the one to dig him out. My life is filled with enough ugliness. I live in a city where shootings are routine, where political corruption is de rigueur, where segregation has led to poverty and crime, where the rising costs of living have further isolated the rich from the poor. I see and feel frustration daily. Hell, the constant traffic and unending construction are enough to drive a person over the edge. Add to that the nightmare of our political moment and the hardening to violent stories that would’ve once stayed news for months, not minutes. Add my own personal struggles, which often seem trivial in comparison to the above, yet can be daunting. Add it all up and it equals no more time to feed the troll that was once my friend. 

Sorry, buddy. Miss you already.